The Art of Insanity Epilogue

"Born in grief, raised in hate, helpless to defy his fate.
Let him run. Let him live.
But do not forget what we cannot forgive.

He is not one of us.
He has never been one of us. He is not part of us.
Not our kind.

Someone once lied to us.
Now we're not so blind.
For we knew he would do what he's done and we know that he'll never be one of us.

He is not one of us.

Deception.

Disgrace." - Not One of Us by The Lion King 2 OST

Rossi knew, he just knew, that when he answered that phone that he was going to be overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to break someone's kneecaps.

Alfred was missing again.

He was not one for swearing but he couldn't stop himself this time. Missing people weren't his department. While he did run into a case with a missing person every now and again, dealing with a nation who just happened to go missing every other Tuesday was not in his job description. That whole bullshit with the missing nation had just begun with an Arctic nation who will go unnamed trying to get a bunch of lower humans to do his job for him.

Luckily though, he had a feeling he knew where Alfred was.

"Oh, I can't thank-you enough." Arthur's accented voice said in his ear over the phone. "That git always seems to be getting into trouble. Honestly, his house-mate should really think investing in a leash..."

"I don't think that'll be necessary, Mr. Kirkland." He can't help feel slightly grudging towards the Briton. Maybe it was Alfred's influence slowly seeping into his thoughts and poisoning his judgement. Maybe it was just his mind dwelling on those horrible scribbles all over that wall.

"You sure? Well, all right then. Please give me up a ring when you find the lad. I'm too old to be worrying myself like this. That boy needs to get a grip on reality–"

Rossi sighed. "Don't we all? Good-bye, Mr. Kirkland."

He slammed the phone back down on the cradle and ripped out the plug from the wall jack. He picked up his coffee and sipped the rest down before looking hatefully at the paperwork that lay in wait. He would finish it later. Unfortunately, there was an idiot to locate at the time being.

With a message to Aaron that he would be out for the rest of the day, he shut off his phone and sneaked away to his car.

Rossi had to guess that the old saying was true. You normally heard a fool before you saw one.

"Sheeeeeeeeeeeeee's satisfied to be a lady and a traaaaaaaaaamp,
But there's something she just doesn't understand.
Oh, god, the things she says!
She waaants to be a lady and a tramp,

But she'd never show the lady to the band."

Oh god, the horrors of modern music. As much as he disliked the song though, it helped him locate Alfred pretty quickly. He was in front of his wall of scribbles. The terrifying scribbles that told his life story. They looked more violent, more torn. They swerved this way and that and screamed across the wall. Emotion poured from the words and they seemed to twist as if they were alive themselves.

As he made his way down the hall, he ran his fingers over the wall. There were more words this time. They were twisting, swirling with the wall itself. Poisonous, they were – those words. He ran across something wet and realised that they were fresh. The ink burned his fingers.

"But you may have missed it,
And you're not some winsome misfit
Speaking up for all of womankiiiiiiiind, yeeeeeah.

Sheeeeeeeeeeee's satisfied to be a lady and a traaaaaaaaaaaaamp–"

Alfred was scribbling and shaking his hips violently at the rhythm of whatever the hell he was listening to. His arm was a blur as it swung up and down the stone wall. His glasses were gone and were hanging out of the side of his jean pocket. He looked so young but yet so old if those dark bags were anything to go by. He looked haunted. He looked cursed. His blue eyes seemed to only speak of terrors as he gazed upon his masterpiece with a delirious lunacy.

Alfred was scribbling. He was scribbling madly. Rossi could only catch fragments of what Alfred was writing before he hastily scribbled it out. What was he doing? Was he in a moment that should never be disturbed? The young man seemed to be in an entirely different world.

Then, the speed decreased and Alfred's scowl faded into a hazy smile like he had just taken a whiff of some drug. His hand slowed and became less jerky and longer.

"I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things..."

He knew this. Holy hell, he actually knew this. Queen. Who knew that the kid would be a Queen fan? But then again, he's not surprised. But Alfred always struck him as a person would enjoy more...less-mooshy things? He struck Rossi as a "Metallica" fan or whatever the hell it was.

"What ya doin' tonight? Set my alarm, turn on my charm. That's because I'm a good old fashioned lover boy~ Lemme feel your heartbeat – Oh fuck, what comes next."

Alfred stopped so suddenly that it's comical. His hand came to a complete stop with the sudden inability to remember the rest of a Queen song. Rossi chose to make this the time to reveal himself.

"Queen? You never struck me as a Queen person."

Alfred jumped. The glasses in his jean pocket fell to the ground and turned to face Rossi wildly. "Oh Fuck. You came out of no – shit, shit, my contacts are falling– Holy fuck, I can see forever." The young man readjusted his out-of-place contacts quietly before giving Rossi a winning smile. "Hey broski. Didya' like my company so much that you came to visit me?"

"Your...friends were worried that you had gone missing again. Do you make it a terrible habit to go missing every other Wednesday?"

"I find that it's a lot easier to disappear on a Thursday actually, but awwwww. They care about little old me so much to even think about sending out a search man? That's so kind. So considerate." His last words flourished and twisted on a thin edge of anger and deceit. America said nothing else and turned back to his wall.

"I don't have time for them." The young man clarified after a moment. "They can go fuck themselves for all I care."

"Mr. Jones, they are quite worried about you–"

"Right. Riiiiight. Okay come on Ross-man. No need for the formality. I've been around longer than necessary and there's no need for you to act like a gentleman here. So Alfred."

"I really don't care. Mr. Jones–"

"Alllllfreeeeeed~!"

"Alfred. You need to tell your frie – fellow workers that the B.A.U. isn't your baby sitter. If you have an issue with them worrying about where the hell you are, then take it up with them. Mr. Jones, if I have to come down this hellhole one more time and deal with the hell of walking back up again, I will make sure it is personal hell for you."

Alfred snorted. "Man you're frightening. Making me shake in my boots! Italiano raaaage! Pfft. Yeah man. I get what you're saying. Next time just don't even bother with them. I'll deal with them when I'm done."

"Mr. Jones –"

"Motherfucker, it's Alfred." He snapped suddenly. "Mr. Jones is something that my boss doesn't even call me. So stop with the damn formalities already."

Rossi raised a brow at the sudden outburst. The young man groaned quietly.

"Sorry man. I just...haven't been sleeping lately. No sleep really just plays with my mind. But seriously don't call me by my last name." Alfred's hand slowed to stop on the stone wall above him. "It's like I just can't any more. Like I'm struck petrified at the very thought of closing my eyes and drifting off into some slumber. It won't last forever. It didn't the first time."

"This has happened before?"

"It...It always happens after something traumatic man. Civil War. World War 1 and 2. Great Depression. Cold War...Oh man. Somany sleepless nights in that forty years. So, so, so soooooo many sleepless nights. Sometimes I'd think that Russia would come crawling in through my window and slit me open while I slept to steal my heart. That's what I always thought. That he wanted my heart because his own was too damaged to proper functionally and he needed one similar to his own."

Alfred bent over to pick up his fallen glasses. "And he realised we're too similar to pass up the chance."

It was quiet and cold in the dark unending stairwell. America capped his marker and took a step away from the wall to view his work.
"You're not just here to see if I'm all right." America said. "You're here for something else."

"I am." He doesn't even bother to hide it. He knew it was useless.

"Smart move."

Rossi said nothing and moved to stand next to the young man. He decided to take his own look at the wall and was slightly surprised to see the drawing. It was childish, crude but Alfred seemed to be proud of it. Like a child he was – with his mannerisms and bright smile, even if those eyes of his only told false lies.

It was a drawing of them. Him, Reid, J.J., Emily, Derek. He raised an eyebrow. Some were stick figures, crudely drawn with haphazard speech bubbles to voice their words; others were well drawn out and depicting scenes of great triumph and heroism. There were lone words too, but they were messy and weak and like a child's bad script. He couldn't read them and quietly he knew that had been the whole plan. Alfred didn't want anyone seeing those.

"Do I even want to know what these are?"

"These are my memories, Rossi my man!" Alfred exclaimed in his vibrant voice. It echoed off the walls. "What, do you think we remember everything about our pasts? Remember every war we've fought; every man we've slaughtered? Do you think we remember all the hatred we've felt, as if it's just like some massive fuckin' piece of drier lint that just keeps collecting, collecting, collecting until something finally sets it ablaze? We don't remember everything dude. Goddamn, we'd be fucked if we did."

"So these...drawings. They're to help you remember?"

"Pretty much. I remember almost everything with these drawings. They're like diary entries almost, but sometimes I forget to come down here so there's tons of gaps and shit. The Civil War is pretty blank 'cause I spent most of my time all over the fuckin' place. As far as I know, I'm the only one who uses this idea of drawing and scribbling, but a few other European's have written down their adventures as well."

Rossi took another look at the wall. To a point, it was a great piece of wonder. It mapped almost two-hundred and thirty-five years of life and spread across the wall like an infectious disease. It was magnificent, wondrous and ever expanding. The wall before him would be any historian's master dream of uncovering.

But yet, with it's scribbles and poisonous leaves, it would be of certainly no use. There would not be a soul that would take it seriously. It was childplay's, but yet to Alfred – it was his ever expanding masterpiece.

"How far does this go back?"

"Depends how far you want to go back." Alfred answered. "This was connected to a cavern where I used to draw on as a kid. This cavern has its roots in mine. It holds things I wouldn't even dare think of."

Rossi frowned. Alfred only smiled in return.

Boy, he really hated this kid.

He spoke in nothing but misguided riddles that spoke of darker times. He spoke of only himself and his extreme discontent for the rest of the world. The American's hand lingered on a wet part of the wall for only a moment and smiled tenderly; his blue eyes shining with something that was foreign and unwelcome on his new, gaunt features.

Then it clicked. The gestures, the words, the riddles, the careful caress as if with a sudden, immobile lover. It clicked.

"The room we found you in is only a lie wasn't it?" His voice was quiet and sullen. "This hallway, this set of stone and mortar, this. This is the Room of Memories."

"Yep."

"And you stole Russia's scarf as a joke and it had absolutely nothing to do with all of this."

"Yep."

"And Russia was simply using us not because he was unable to face his sister but because he was bored."

"Pretty much." Alfred snickered and Rossi scowled. "Oh come on brohandas Ghandi. You had to expect that one coming if anything. Dude, did this whole thing just totally fuck your understanding of Russia up? Don't let it do that. He's still a douchebag. He's the King of Douchebags!"

The older agent turned back to the stone wall with its thickly-penned doodles and drabbles that spread over its contours like a batch of burly thorns. He scowled deeper.
"I was interrogating him before I arrived here on the night of the incident."

"Oh maaaaaan. Is that were you got that nasty shit on your forehead? Honestly, that dickwad doesn't understand that shit like that doesn't just go away on Humans." Alfred started to prod at the healing wound but Rossi slapped his hand away. Alfred still smiled though the quivering edges of his lips showed that his hands felt inflamed in fire. But it was obvious what he was, even though his hand burned with fire. He was so happy, so elated. He was so excited to talk to someone else that wasn't him. That wasn't his own overbearing conscious that bore down on him every minute of every day for all eternity. His eyes were lightening with each passing moment, even though they still held a quick grip on their precious delirium. That's what the foreign look was in his beryl eyes.

"As I was saying, I happened to have talked with him. If you consider his near breakdown a talk that is. Though, he mentioned that 'it was the wrong one'. What do you think he meant by that? Didn't he know the real extent of what was...occurring?"

There was a moment of silence but it was only because Alfred had taken a moment to check his phone for the time. He put the phone away and grabbed the edge of his jeans and slid them up.

"Probably. Probably not. Russia has two sisters, you see. Belarus and Ukraine. You can technically also consider Poland a sister too but yeah, uh, he's got two of them. Ukraine's...She's pretty normal most of the time. And Belarus...? She's the crazy one. She wants to marry Russia."

"Marry him?"

"Yep. Marriage. Weird isn't it? But really – if it had been about the scarf, then Belarus would have been your culprit. Ukraine was an unseen factor. Russia originally thought that Belarus had kidnapped me over the scarf and then discovered that she could 'break me' for him or something. I'm guessing it would be like her wedding present or some shit to Ivan. Oh hey, I broke your old enemy's will. Let's get married, married, married!"

"I...see."

Alfred chuckled. His arm suddenly made a large arc and Rossi looked back at the wall as Alfred started scribbling underneath.

"You can break a mirror and put it back together, but you will always see the cracks of your mistake."

The nation then stretched his arms. "It's okay man. I don't understand any of it either. Anything else you gotta ask me?"

"My co-worker also mentioned that Russia's sibling, Ukraine, was...more or less doing this for him."

"Kinda. It was for the world and for Russia. More for Russia than anything though. Even though she hated the time under U.S.S.R., she can't help but feel that it's her duty to bring her brother back up with the rest of the world. And the fact that like, everyone is pissed as fuck at me right about now because no one knows how to run a government lately. So it was more or less fifty-fifty."

"What makes you think you know that you're saying the truth and that your mind isn't simply telling you measly lies to make yourself feel better?"

Alfred started laughing loudly as if the very suggestion made him break down into a fit of laughter. "Man, if it was doing that I would be King of fucking Gingerbread Palace and my wife would be a female Iceland because damn that kid's got some nice legs too bad he's got a weird penis fetish and a dick so that can't really work because then it would be like two kings and one would always be trying to own up for something like with big cars or a penis museum in town-square and try to make the villagers pay large taxes so he can bathe in money and gold and jewels and bemoan his tiny dick and the other king would be eating all the villagers because there's no Queen to tell him 'No Alfred you can't eat the people – they're your subjects!'and pretty much the Kingdom would collapse in on itself because guys can't get pregnant and I don't care how girly my hips are there is no fucking way I'm pushing a child out of me. I watch reality television and all I know it's pretty much just like WHUAAAAAAAGH NNNNNNNGH OH MY GOSH THERE'S A FUCKING THING COMING OUT OF MY VAAAAAG but where the fuck would it come out? So yeah there's no heir and there's no villagers because I ate them all and Iceland has a dick.

"Anyway, I know I'm right. Simply because this stuff is just easy to look at it when you've been around as long as I have. I've been around the block too many times for me to be even considered a virgin at this shit. I know that I'm not bullshitting myself because Russia is as he is and forever will he be the ugly duckling of Europe and Europe is tired of my bullshit as it is. They wanted to get back at me and did not know of a way and a why to do. Actually, there're tons of whys but most of them are not my fault – excluding the time I accidentally weed-whacked England's petunias oops – but those would just pretty much kill my ego boner. So yeah –"

"Will you just get on with it?"

"An opportunity presented itself, my friend!" Alfred exclaimed in a grandoise manner; his voice bouncing off the walls once more. "I stole Russia's scarf simply because I split something on it and he's too much of a damn pussy to get the thing dry-cleaned! Ukraine found out that I had it because she came to visit me to talk to me about her gas-bill and she pretty much went psycho woman on me especially after seeing that it had a stain on it still from Russia shoving me and me shoving him back and accidentally elbowing a glass of accidentally left-out red wine and spilling it over his shit. Anyway. I didn't fight back because well, yeah, I can't hit girls. Not unless...Well never. She pretty much got the best of me. And smothered me with her boobs. I'm sorry, but those things could kill a small child."

"So she kidnapped you and...?"

"She took me to the fake room. She must have thought that this was the Room of Memories. Yeah man, it originally was a room and shit but I kinda expanded and found out I needed a lot more room...So yeah. Ukraine took me there and pretty much called up the rest of Europe and asked what to do with me. All I fucking heard that she'd only need to keep me until it was all over. Herpderaderpherp, whatever the fuck that meant I guess."

"So the rest of Europe was in on this?"

"Yep. Douchebags."

"And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it either is there?"

"Absolutely none." Alfred hissed. "Absolutely fucking none. Goddamn, I never have felt more useless and used in my entire life before. Fucking goddamn assholes. Go back to your motherfucking collapsing Europe! I'll dance till the last moonlight by myself!"

All of a sudden, Alfred turned and swung his fist forward and straight into the wall. The stone beneath Alfred's knuckles crumbled away as if it never was there.

"I try and try." He sneered. "And it's never good enough."

His knuckles were bloodied but he didn't care.

"That's why England tried to put a bullet into your agent's head." Alfred clarified. "Do you know why he did as he did? He found out Ivan was using you for his own personal gain and decided to try and turn that against him. Iggy doesn't trust humans. He never has. Especially after the Gunpowder Plot. He thought that the House wouldn't react to you or your team. He thought you would never find me. While in the cruel reality – you were exactly what the house was looking for."

The thought that they were the people a house was looking for a little bit more than creepy, but nonetheless, the whole situation overall was creepy. He decided to skip on to the next question. "Hotch also told me something interesting. He told me that another person is living in the house. A man named Toris. Did he know?"

"Probably." He shrugged. "Toris knows almost everything that goes on in the world. Shit man, it may have been nearly over half millennia – that guy still knows what he's doing even if his partner in crime now delves into his more feminine side. But yeah he probably knew. Japan knew too. That's why he didn't give you the keys."

"The sleepy one...Greece? Him as well?"

"Don't even know about that one man. Especially with all the crapstorm that guy keeps getting. Revolutions, Revolutions everywhere. But he probably knew. Greece probably knew. France probably knew. They all knew. Even my brother."

"Your brother was very brave."

"Yeah I know. Hope the Hospital knows that he'll be gone in three days though."

"Do nations heal that fast?"

"Faster actually and I was hurt worse than him! Poor kid's never seen by anyone so it's not surprising he got runover with that cot thingy But yeah, Mattie's a strong bamf and he'll be gone soon enough back to his land of maple syrup and pot."

It was a rare moment of silence again where nothing more could be said and America went back to his drawings to suddenly stop again. He capped his heavy-duty marker and slipped it into his pocket and grinned at Rossi.

"If ya' wanna leave, just keep going downstairs all right and take the door to the left of the staircase. Like seriously. The one on the same wall. Yeah, it's that one. Got it, you got it? All right good! Later dude!" The older man was more than relieved when the young nation started to leave but things never seemed to work out correctly for David to begin with.

But he had one more question to ask before the nation took his final leave out of his life.

"Are you sure about Russia, America?"

America stopped in his tracks. When he turned, his face was blank but it only took a moment before a sly smile crawled onto its lips.

"If you spend forty years of an endless life running from the same man, you'd learn his moves too hmm?"

Then, Alfred turned before he realised it and he was suddenly shoving something into the front pockets of Rossi's pants. "Give me a call sometime, Broseph. Really, do it. I have no friends. But yeeeeah. If you ever need something from me, just give me a call yeah?"

Alfred left with a wave before he turned and continued on farther up the stairs, leaving Rossi to an endless stream of thoughts and a poisonous wall with useless memories.

The B.A.U. Was silent when Rossi returned hours later after getting lost in the nation's house, getting stuck in traffic and spending time at a local book-store. He collapsed in his seat and closed his eyes.

It was peaceful. It was so peaceful.

It was a rare peace, only given when no one was at the office and the phones weren't ringing off their hooks. He never got to experience the peace often, because there was always something small attempting to tear a rip right through it be it the incessant tapping of the keys on his keyboard, or a faraway phone ringing constantly or even a door slamming far away in an adjacent building.

His last peace was ruined by Russia. Almost, he expected that same looming Russian to be lurking in his corner. The nations had become apart of his life for a while and it was so strange to see them gone. He would probably never see them again. The card with Alfred's number on it seemed to burn a hole in his pocket at the thought.

This was peace. This was nice. He hoped it would last forever. He folded his hands over his chest and kicked his feet out onto the desk. He wanted this to last forever.

But the peace didn't last long.

The cold barrel of a magnum revolver brushed the edge of his temple and a dangerous click jarred him from his silly dreams.

"Humans aren't meant to know."

Bang.