rinse, lather, repeat
chapter 2

—

They discuss military strategy first thing in the morning, over bowls of lukewarm rice porridge.

"I think you are letting yīngguó take advantage of you. He — or his people, if you will — seem very into the idea of 'total war', which means we should adapt to his methods."

"Yeah, they just burn everything in their path — that's their goddamn strategy," America snaps, bitter, and it's clear that his injury is getting to him.

China peers at him with tired eyes. "How is your arm, America?"

"Fine," America grumbles, "Fucking perfect."

And that's a blatant lie, because his arm is covered in bandages, and they're stained (soaked) with pus from the burn. China has an inkling America hates feeling useless whenever he's injured — hates that he's a burden, that he needs to be taken care of, like a child. (Except China doesn't mind — really, he doesn't, because America had done the same for him a week ago, hadn't he? Only China hadn't felt like a child then, he'd felt like a senile old man, lying on his deathbed, breathing his last breath, and he'd been bitter, regret hanging on every word...)

They eat in silence for a while, and America, in his anger, lifts the jar of ròusōng and dumps half the jar onto his porridge.

China raises his eyebrows, but doesn't comment.

Eventually, America murmurs, almost thoughtful, "I might as well just give him all the cities he wants — I mean, considering that this damn battle doesn't have any real meaning, I kinda would prefer not being burned to owning more territory."

"Your people will not take kindly to this strategy," China says, shaking his head, "Can you imagine telling them — 'Oh yes, let's just retreat and surrender! I mean, I don't have a logical reason to give you or anything, but I really want to just stop all of this — '"

"And our wounds aren't reason enough?" America grumbles, slamming his bowl onto the dirt floor. Then he tugs at his bandages, layer after layer, and whispers, "These wounds — everything we've been hiding — they need to see them, and fuck them if they still don't care afterwards!"

But China just shakes his head, because it won't work, because no one would believe them.

("Who is this nutcase?" they'd ask, "Claiming to be our country — what a load of horseshit."

"Yeah, get a hold of yourself, would you? Even if I stab and kill you now, you'll just get revived next round. Permanent scars and pain — hah! Hey guys, anybody got a bayonet? Let's roast some noobs!"

And their laughter would echo in the night air, polluting it with their every breath.

China doesn't want to hear it.)

—

Québec's disappearance happens on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

And the first cases of acute mental breakdown start that evening — a family of four — a mother, a father, and their two children had come into the hospital, reporting hallucinations, dizziness and paranoia.

England asks France if he's seen the news, because — "There's five of them now — that family and another kid at the hospital. Something's wrong, France, something's really — "

"Something is always wrong," France says, looking up at the ceiling. He pulls his tie around his neck, because they've got work to attend to tonight, and dressing right is the only thing that reminds him of home, of what came before.

But England, in a sudden burst of rage, reaches forward and rips the tie from his hands. "Don't sound so nonchalant, France. Québec — he shot himself, and you're sitting here picking out ties — what, is playing dressup more important than your goddamn son's life?"

There's no response, and England throws the tie to the floor, frustrated. "France, do you care at all? His people are — there's something wrong and we don't know what the hell is going on! How can you not feel a damn thing, after all these years, after we spent all this time condemning our people for nonchalance, ambivalence, and here you are, acting the part — "

"Angleterre," France cuts in, "why do you insist on making everything difficult?"

"Shut up," England snarls, "You were never good at repressing your emotions, France. That's my job — I'm the one who pretends like everything's okay, not you. You're supposed to be passionate one, bursting with emotion!"

Then he shakes France, slams his back into the wall, and screams, "So why aren't you caring? Why aren't you complaining about the unfairness of it all? Where are your protesters, where are the riots, the manifestations you're so damn proud of?"

France says nothing.

Instead, he pulls out a set of confirmation papers from his breast pocket and hands them to England. "Meet me at the station by 20:30. We're going to visit him, Angleterre."

Even though he is no longer there...

—

When they get off the plane and check into the nearest hotel, they turn on the TV to catch the latest news — three more people had showed up at the hospital, with the exact same symptoms as those who had come before. They were bringing the first man out on a wheelchair and —

"You said you saw hallucinations," the reporter says, "What exactly did you see?"

"They didn't feel like hallucinations!" the man shouts, "'Cause after it was over — it felt like some part of the hallucination was still lingering, like I could still feel the touch of — " The man suddenly leaps up and grabs the reporter's shoulders and screams, "Oh dieu, qu'est-ce que j'ai fait? Cette femme — who was it that I killed?"

The man looks terrified, and his limbs seem to be shrinking further into his wheelchair. "Who did I kill? Who?"

He continues his screaming, and France reaches for the remote and shuts off the TV.

"I don't want to see this," he says and tosses the remote on their bed.

England rounds on him immediately. "I don't give a damn if you want to see it or not, Francis. Québec's disappearance changed something — something fundamental about the game, and we are not going to sit here and drown in ignorance just because you are too goddamn cowardly to look at the news."

There is the look of ashen disapproval on France's face, but England snatches the remote from his hands, and flips the TV on again.

The man they'd been trying to interview answers a few more questions, now describing in morbid detail the three infantrymen he'd killed two rounds back. "I saw — they were crying — oh god, how is it possible? They never cry, they're not supposed to cry! And there was so much blood, it was everywhere, on the floor, staining my clothes — why did I never see this the first time around?"

He turns to the reporter and screeches, "Pourquoi? Dis-moi!" Why? Tell me!

"Angleterre," France grumbles, glaring at the screen and the increasingly hysterical man, "This — this is nothing more than a distraction. Oh, how nice of them, bringing the man onto the center stage — let's ask him questions, let's demonstrate his craziness, but let's not reveal the truth — the fact that this only happened because Québec left. Let's distract you with his mental deterioration and forget the..."

France trails off — because the man — he's reaching for the reporter's neck, choking her, and she's struggling to free herself. The two aides run up to pry him off, and —

The screen suddenly turns blank.

—

There's a dirt path leading from his house to the creek, and every morning, he runs down it, letting the spring breeze wash over his face. The kids shout when they see him, they cling to his legs with their muddy hands, and shout, "Matt! Matt! You're back!" — and then they drag him into the creek with them, laughing.

Today, he has an announcement to make.

"Who wants to go to Disneyland this winter?" he asks.

Eager hands shoot into the air. "Ooh, me, me!"

"No, no, me!"

Canada just laughs and ruffles their hair.

"I think we have room for everyone," he says, because Disneyland had been empty for decades, and it would be like visiting an old relic. Abandoned, rusted — oh god — he couldn't think like that, because America had been gone for as long as Disneyland had been empty, and —

He puts his arms around the kids protectively.

They couldn't, absolutely could not enter any buildings — because every time he'd peered into one, it was always the same thing. Rows and rows of people glued to their precious computer screens, who would never, ever leave. He wouldn't let that happen to them; the last generation had been ruined, it had been the second coming of the Lost Generation, but this wasn't going to happen again.

Not if he could help it.

—

Ontario paces back and forth, feeling frantic. "Where is he? Goddamn separatist bastard, he's the only one — the only one who's still in there! Does he want to leave that badly, so bad that he's willing to put up with that farce of a game?"

Manitoba snorts. "He's probably just sick of you — I mean, who wants to listen to you rant and cuss?"

"Shut up," Ontario snaps, clearly agitated, "I told him it was a dumb idea, but does he give a shit? It's like I tell him one thing and he goes and does the exact opposite! And now he's gone and who the fuck knows when he's coming back, if he's coming — "

"Ontario," Canada says, looking up from his laptop. Then he hesitates, wondering if he should tell Ontario what he'd found, because this wasn't good news, and Ontario had looked so drained and worn and lost that maybe this just wasn't appropriate. Except it'd never be appropriate, because Québec was — was —

"Ontario," he tries again, willing his voice to sound calmer than he feels, "Québec's not on the in-game roster anymore, he — we've lost track of him."

Then he bites his lip, looking at his province with concern. "Wait, don't — "

But Ontario leaps up, eyes wide and terrified. "No," he whispers, "no, no, no — he can't be dead — he can't. He promised me — he fucking promised! Canada, tell me he's not dead, he's just playing again, right? Très drôle, Québec, très drôle, you stupid, stupid — "

And Canada watches, helpless, as Ontario runs for the door, slams it behind him, hands trembling.

They'd miscalculated, they'd really miscalculated this time. He still remembers when Québec pulled him aside that night —

"It's true, isn't it? There's a drought, and we might die, for real this time."

"If we don't leave, then yes."

"Are we going to leave then? Our people, they won't — "

"They've already agreed, actually. That's not the problem. The problem is that we — we can't actually leave that easily. Do you remember when we first entered the game? The reason our people don't feel pain is that their bodies are shut off from sensations in the real world, and they're fed artificial signals from the game. If we were to leave, we need to turn off that — but the switches in the game haven't been working."

"What? They're not working?" A look of momentary panic flashes across Québec's face.

"But there's another way. America once told me about a backup exit method — we would have to — to commit mass suicide."

"Is that our people or us?"

"Us."

"Great, so we get to suffer even more for the sake of our damn people — what have they ever done for us? Why the hell are we always — "

"Québec, we won't suffer more — we can do the deaths painlessly and quickly. But there's a problem — the suicides — they need to be monitored, because at precisely the moment when our final major organs shut down, the switch needs to be flipped. If it's not done right — we will — "

Québec suddenly laughs, and his laughter is harsh and high. "So, you want me to stay behind, is that it? Stay behind and watch all of you kill yourselves and then make sure you make it to the other end."

"No," Canada protests, "that's not what I meant! This is purely your choice — you can choose to stay behind — or not."

"Oh," Québec says, "really, my choice? That's why you told me all of that, right? That's why you explained we were going to die of the drought, because if I don't — "

"It's your choice, Québec!"

His lips lift in a sneer. "Oh, I'll do it. I'll do whatever is needed to keep all the rest of you safe — it's not like it'd be worth it for me to make it in the real world. None of you would want me there, and it's better to stay at a place where at least I'm wanted, right?"

"Non, Québec, c'est pas ce que tu penses — "

"Don't speak French to me! I don't want to hear the damn words coming out of your throat! Especially not after you sided with them — you were perfectly content to let them push me off to France and Germany and Mongolia, weren't you? Like I didn't matter at all — and I don't see why I would now, if you weren't asking for this."

"That's not true! I didn't want that — I never did...I just..."

He trails off, watching Québec turn to leave the room, slamming the door behind him.

Canada chokes down his bitter laugh at the memory, because they were always leaving, leaving, leaving, and all he ever saw were their backs, shoulders tense and angry from their last argument. And if Ontario ever found out about the truth, that he'd gone to Québec first, and that Québec had lied about his people wanting to stay — they — the two of them were going to kill him.

And as much as he tries to tell himself that it was Québec's choice, that he hadn't forced anyone into anything, he knows it's not entirely true. Because during the game — during their fifth or sixth round, Québec had convinced Ontario that Alberta was out to get them again, because — "They're perfectly content to let us easterners freeze in the dark — so fuck them and all that they stand for."

The angry rhetoric soon turned into loaded guns, and as the battle cries of civil war roared in the background, Canada realized that he'd forgotten how to forgive.

—

The two of them go to the hospital together — they're requesting information on all the affected citizens. They're not surprised when their request is refused — privacy laws, the secretary tells them, they have to respect that.

England just gives a short bark of laughter and tells France, "They keep the records in a cabinet in the storage room." Then he leans in and whispers, "Fuck the government, right?"

France nods, light grin playing at his lips.

And so they head there, breaking the lock on the door down through sheer force of will. The room is mostly bare, except for two lone cabinets sitting at opposite ends. And the files, when they pull them out, all say the same thing in different words:

"Patient is having vivid memories of an earlier round, when they gutted someone in the stomach with a bayonet. Reasons for this sudden memory are unknown. Whether the scenario actually occurred is also unknown."

"Angleterre," France says, with great urgency, "do you remember who Québec was fighting against the last few rounds?"

England snorts. "What makes you think I would know? I'm not — I'm not..." He's not Canada, he wants to tell France, but then neither of them really wants to think about what had happened to Matthew.

But France is already scrolling through the records — going through Québec's battles from the third to last round:

[March 1102]: The Kingdom of Belgium has declared war on the Khanate of Québec.
[December 1105]: The Khanate of Québec has burned down the city of Bruxelles.
[April 1106]: The Khanate of Québec has destroyed the city of Antwerpen.

France points at the screen, having found what he wanted. "There it is, Angleterre — three rounds ago, Québec destroyed Anvers. The records don't specify how, but that doesn't matter. Do you know where Anvers is on Belgique?"

"No," England snaps, "I don't feel everyone up the way you do."

France laughs, but his laughter is cold. "It's her stomach," he says, "and if Québec destroyed Anvers, it'd be like him stabbing her in the midsection. Don't you remember what that man said he did — he gutted someone in the stomach with his bayonet. Doesn't that sound familiar now?"

England's eyes widen in realization.

—

"Rìběn has been quiet this round," China comments, looking thoughtful, because there haven't been any bitter clashes between their two peoples this round.

"Well," America says, studying the map on the screen and cradling the precious cup of water in his lap, "your people are very far from each other, so fighting doesn't break out nearly as often."

"I forget — where is he again?"

"Where England used to be. And Ireland basically switched places with South Korea, so — well, everyone knows that the British Isles have basically been a neverending warzone. Not that relations across the Korea Strait are any better — England and Ireland are still going at it. Although it seems like England's hiding somewhere right now, so all's quiet on the Western — or I guess Eastern front."

China sighs. War was hardly a surprise anymore — their people were perfectly content to let verbal wars turn into physical spats, because mindless violence was the perfect outlet for anger, not diplomacy, never diplomacy. And of course, the same questions were always on his mind — their lack of fighting was unnatural — so just how long would this unexpected peace last? He hadn't wanted to think about reason and rationality and all those other things you were supposed to think about during war, but —

America's waving in his face again, yelling for China to come back down to earth.

"Are you alright? You keep zoning out — something heavy on your mind?" America gives him a curious look, and then says, "You know what, how about I give you some advice on this — "

"I don't need advice from you," China grumbles.

America snorts. "Why, because I'm too young to be giving someone like you advice? 'Cause you've lived for too long or some shit like that — but you know what, I don't care. I'm giving you advice anyway. You need to stop worrying. It's going to give you wrinkles." He suddenly grins and reaches for China's cheeks, attempting to tug at them, but China brushes away his fingers irritably.

"I do not have wrinkles, měiguó!"

"Hey, don't worry, remember?" America says over China's protests, "There's always plastic surgery!"

China lets out a muffled laugh — and then makes up some lie about how he would never get plastic surgery because he's plenty handsome as it is, and would America really want him to change for the worse?

They go back to staring at the map again, trying to sort the military strategies running through their minds. China watches as America studies the screen — he loses his earlier relaxed stance, instead, he's staring at the screen with unmatched intensity. He's scared, that much China can tell, because he doesn't want to lose again, doesn't want to feel like he's useless and pathetic.

"You know, I've been thinking about your proposition this morning..." China says, looking at the tense figure of America before him.

"Forget it," America snaps, squeezing the styrofoam cup in his hands until it cracks, "I was just pissed. You were right. They'll never believe us, and we'll just look like goddamn fools for trying."

"Well, actually, I was going to say that if we're going to show them, we should start with the kids. They're most impressionable, right? The children were the ones who were convinced fastest that this is all fine — that the violence is meaningless and temporary. If we start with the young ones, we have a much higher chance of getting somewhere."

America gives him a curious look, and then he throws back his head and laughs.

"Oh, you are evil, China."

—

translations:

"Oh dieu, qu'est-ce que j'ai fait? Cette femme..." - "Oh god, what have I done? That woman..."
très drôle - very funny
"Non, Québec, c'est pas ce que tu penses..." - No, Québec, it's not what you think...

ròusōng - 肉松 - I usually see it translated as "pork sung", it's this dried meat floss thing. it's good, just sayin' ;)
rìběn - 日本 - Japan

Bruxelles (French) = Brussels (English)
Antwerp (English) = Antwerpen (Dutch) = Anvers (French)

notes (for linked version see lj):

- Canada: "Let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark." - showed up in Alberta in response to the National Energy Policy of the '70s.
- U.S. parallel: "Let the Yankee bastards freeze in the dark." - bumper stickers in Texas (and Oklahoma and Louisana), protesting against the Northeast. I forget who copied whom...
- I swear that the general tone of most MMORPG's I've played have been that of China's imaginary scenario. 'hiya noob. look at how awesomely powerful i am. now, go die.'
- It is actually not possible for Canada et al to pull the cord on everyone else. More about that later.