Soluble Chapter Three: A Hairline Fracture

"And I never once heard you complain

And you said,

Don't crack, because you might not make it back."

- Down, Down, Down to Mephisto's Café, Streetlight Manifesto

"Undress him," Ivan ordered, rummaging through the armful of things he had brought back with him. Toris made no move to do so, staring at the Russian was something approaching astonishment. Ivan didn't help people – he was the one who smashed them apart in the first place. He didn't collect bandages and patch them up after the fact. The tall nation looked up from his hunched over position, eyebrows raised, smiling slightly.

"Da? This is not a problem for you, is it? If you are hoping to spare me the sight, it isn't anything I have not seen before." The smile widened, becoming something more than cruel.

If anything, that comment didn't help. Lithuania flinched away from the expression he was getting, and shook his head. "N – no. It isn't."

"Good. Then get on with it, hm?" Russia's smile vanished, and he returned to sorting out the pile. Bandages, a cloth… the telltale clink of glass bottles, which meant that he had brought more than one up with him.

Toris shivered, and turned to Gilbert, who looked blandly back. The Baltic nation wondered whether the other was capable of any other expression without feeling pain. With steady, practiced hands – not that he made a habit of stripping people on Russia's behalf – he began to work the buttons on Gilbert's uniform. They came away easier than expected – in some places, the thread keeping them on was so weak it snapped when he tugged too hard. The shirt wasn't going to be saved, Toris noted absently. Judging by the dried stains on it, he hoped Prussia hadn't been planning on keeping it.

"Always knew… you wanted to get…. in my pants, Toris…" Gilbert mumbled when the other leaned in to work apart the hook in the collar. Lithuania flushed. Even in a situation like this, Gilbert couldn't manage to stay serious; or keep his mouth shut. It was going to get him in trouble, Toris knew; none of the Baltic nations had been particularly mouthy towards Ivan, and he had still found offense in the most innocent of comments. Speaking of the Russian, Lithuania realized he couldn't hear the man moving anymore – which meant that he could probably hear everything.

"Shut up, Gilbert," he growled, giving the other a scowl; playing along, because he got the feeling that was what Prussia needed most right now. The older nation (ex-nation, his conscience whispered) hadn't ever been one for being treated like an invalid, despite the very obvious fact that was what he was at the moment.

"You're not denying – aaagghh!" The other's playful taunt dissolved into a gasp of pain as Toris jerked too hard on his shirt.

Lithuania had seen battered nations. Hell, he had seen himself after a night spent with an angry, drunken Ivan Braginski. But Prussia looked like he had been through a mine field and back. The bandages that started at the top of his head, wrapping over one eye, around part of his jaw, and down his neck continued down his chest, around his arms – some of it was clean, some of it was not. Clearly the physical exertion of walking here had ripped open wounds again, if the dull red blossoms on his chest and neck were anything to go by.

That was not to mention the smell. Toris had wondered why Gilbert had had his jacket so tight – it must have caused him so much additional pain. But now he realized that perhaps that jacket and these bandages were the only things actually keeping the other together.

"Infection," the bandaged man supplied weakly. That explained the faintly disgusting smell coming from the bandages. "West… didn't have time…" One of his hands waved uselessly in the air for a moment, communicating what he didn't want to say aloud.

"Da, and this is why we will fix you."

"Alternately," Gilbert said deliberately, meeting that dead violet gaze with his own brilliant red, "you could… just let me… go home. Where West… who does not… resemble a serial murderer… will fix me."

Russia had stood – Toris hadn't noticed the larger nation rising, which was odd because of the sheer amount of space that Ivan occupied – and his expression flickered dangerous as Prussia spoke. Lithuania knew that look – it woke memories of an earlier time; the flash of light off a metal blade, screams of pain gone unanswered in the night. The sudden prickle down his back was enough to remind him that those days hadn't really been so long ago.

"Do you remember that little chat we had, out in the snow?" Ivan was now looming over the bed. He was utterly conscious of the intimidation factor present with his size, and he used it whenever the opportunity presented itself. "About opinions, and how yours doesn't matter?" On the last word, Russia's expression darkened further, and he leaned over the bed.

"You didn't… say anything… about backtalk… you damn russki," Gilbert spat back, finding energy somewhere within his tattered frame to fight back.

"I am now, nemchishka(1)," Ivan said back, his tone entirely pleasant. Toris, off to the side, flinched before Russia's hand actually made contact with the injured side of Gilbert's face with a resounding crack.

The force of the blow jerked the Prussian sideways, and elicited a hoarse yell of pain from him. Gilbert curled away from the blow, trying not to fall off the bed at the same time. Blood began to seep out from under the cotton pad covering his eye; from under the bandage securing it there.

"Scheißen!" Gilbert cursed under his breath for a few more moments, trying not to show the actual amount of pain that was now radiating from the slash under the bandages. Not to mention that the slap had jerked his body enough to rip open more of the precious scabbing that had occurred under his chest bandages.

"Are you ready to behave now, Gilbert?" Ivan leaned in closer, putting his hands on either side of the German and staring right into his face. He got no response, just a one eyed glare that would have peeled paint off of walls. The Russian wasn't fazed in the slightest, and straightened with an abrupt clap of his hands, and turned to regard Lithuania.

"Toris, sit him up and take the bandages off. Keep the bleeding down – I want to save these sheets."

Lithuania nodded, and moved forward again. He stared at Gilbert for a quick moment – the blood on his face added a ghastly aspect to his already gaunt features. Carefully, he slid a hand under the other's back, feeling the soft bandages under his fingers. Gilbert didn't cry out once; he just let out a steady hissing stream of air between gritted teeth. The bloody flowers on his chest grew larger as he was moved.

"I have to take your jacket off," Toris said, and on cue the other raised his arms, eyes fixed on a point somewhere over Ivan's shoulder. It seemed that he was coping with the fact that Russia was in the room by pretended that Ivan didn't exist at all.

Getting the jacket off was rather more trying, and eventually Gilbert grew frustrated with the slow pace and simply yanked his arms out himself; holding a deep breath and not letting go as he did so. The bandages, too, proved to be a great trial. They hadn't been changed in some time – mostly because Gilbert had refused to let anyone near enough to him to do it – and were sticking to the wounds. The long exposure to the cold hadn't helped, making the fabric stiff in places. Once they were off, Toris found himself staring, momentarily at a loss for what to say.

Gilbert looked as though he had been beaten within an inch of his life. Slashes covered his back and front; most of them were semi-healed, though several had been ripped open again. All of them had a raised, angry red cast to them that implied still-untreated infection. But what kept Lithuania's eyes was the hideous wound own Gilbert's left side – it continued from his back over his shoulder, snaking over his heart and down to his ribs. The skin was blackened in places, almost like a burn; the flesh melted and twisted into disturbing raised ridges. Down the ribs, the scabbing was patchy at best, and the Baltic nation swore that he could see bone through the mess of oozing blood and – well, he didn't want to think about what that other substance might be.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Gilbert's voice was rough. His gaze was still fixed on that point just over Russia's shoulder. "It's better than it was two weeks ago, if you can believe it."

"I have some – difficulty – imagining," Lithuania murmured. In addition to everything else, there was a funny marking around Prussia's neck – almost like a metal collar had rested there, and he had tried everything short of decapitating himself to get it off. His brown eyes slid to the ex-nation's fingers; sure enough, the nails were ragged, the skin covered in faint scars from where he had scrabbled at it; presumably in vain. Though he noticed, too, what looked like a fresh set of finger-shaped bruises rising around Gilbert's neck, Lithuania knew better than to comment. It didn't take a great leap of logic to figure out what – rather who – those were from.

"They aren't healing," Ivan said shortly, from his position at the end of the bed. He reached into the pile of bandaging next to him and pulled out one of the vodka bottles, along with a cloth. "Clean them with this – I don't want our newest family member taking too ill." A childish smile appeared on Russia's face. "I will leave this for you to do, Toris. Try and keep it down, da?" The massive nation turned, boots clumping. Lithuania knew that those boots only made sound when their wearer wanted them to.

"I'm going to go see where Raivis is with that tea." Ivan said after a momentary pause by the door. The smile hadn't left his face, and he turned it on Gilbert, who was pointedly still not looking at him. "Get better soon, Comrade Beilschmidt."

There was a tense silence in the room as Russia shut the door behind him, and clumped off down the hallway. A dull thud a few moments later told Toris that the giant of a man had finally decided to kick his boots off; probably in preparation to terrorize Latvia and Estonia. Gilbert, too, remained tense until he could no longer hear Ivan's steps. At that moment, the iron strength that had kept him sitting up under his own power vanished; he collapsed backward, and Toris had to make a lunge to catch him.

Unfortunately, there was very little uninjured skin-space in which he was able to do so. Prussia let out a low grunt of pain, but restrained himself from anything else as Lithuania lowered him back onto the bed. A pained crease had appeared on his forehead.

"Thought… the stupid commie… wouldn't ever leave," he said, voice fainter than it had been all night. "Didn't… want to fall over… in front of him."

"I know what you mean," Toris said softly, not sure whether he should pity or be envious of Prussia's current state. At least this meant that he was safe from anything that Russia might think up to do to him. For a while, at least. "That urge to deny them… something. Anything, if it means you're showing some sort of resistance." He had stopped doing such things a long time ago. In the case of Russia, sometimes it was better to just give in.

It took Prussia's rasping prompt of "Could you… get this over… with," to make Toris realize that he had momentarily zoned out. The Baltic nation blinked, shook himself, and then looked back at Gilbert, who was staring at him with a grimace on what was visible of his face. There were still those bandages to uncover, and Toris wasn't sure that he wanted to know what had happened to the other's face.

"Sorry," he muttered, reached out and grasping the bottle and cloth that he had been left. The squeaking of the lid unscrewing sounded absurdly loud. The sharp, stinging smell that filled the room a moment later was even worse. Toris grimaced as he poured a bit of the clear alcohol onto the cloth; it absorbed it greedily. "This… is really going to hurt," he warned, holding the cloth up. He considered the plethora of wounds he had to clean, and figured that he might as well start with the worst; get it over with.

"Just do it," the other hissed out from between clenched teeth, already anticipating the pain.

Wincing slightly – even though he wasn't the one who would feel it – Lithuania reached out with practiced, gentle hands. The cloth pressed into the horrible disfigurement on Gilbert's side. There was a moment of silence, in which he heard a sharp inhale of breath from the other nation – and then, just when he figured the other wasn't going to do anything more; Gilbert's body arched under his hand as he pressed the cloth in. The Prussian's visible eye was clamped shut, face scrunched in pain, which only caused more of it. His hands splayed uselessly against the bed sheets, alternately clenching and unclenching.

Lithuania removed the cloth.

Gilbert continued to twitch, though his body fell flat against the sheets again. Tears had gathered in the corner of his eye, threatening to spill over as he fixed that red gaze to the ceiling and didn't blink.

"Do you want me to –" Toris started to say something, but Gilbert's entire body simply tensed in response.

"Just… finish it…" he spat. "Worse… if you… stop now…"

Grimacing in sympathy, Lithuania tipped out a bit more of the alcohol, and this time without hesitation, pressed it against the wound. It was disturbing to feel the injury beneath the cloth – ripples and patterns in the flesh where they shouldn't be raised goose-bumps on his arms.

To his credit, Gilbert refrained from screaming the entire time.

Cleaning his chest took quite some time, but finally they were done. Lithuania wasn't positive that was all it would take to keep infection at bay – surely there was some sort of medicine they could use? – but he wasn't sure if Russia would be forthcoming with anything else helpful. At the ex-nation's request, he wrapped the bandages extra tight.

Getting the old bandages off of Prussia's face proved to be even more of a challenge than the ones on his torso had been. This was partially because the white haired man was beginning to succumb to his returning fever and the delirium brought on by an overload of pain. When they were lying in a bloody heap beside the bed, Toris wished that he hadn't had to take them off. The slap that Russia had given Prussia to the face hadn't helped, but it was still an ugly wound.

A deep slash ran from somewhere under his white hair all the way down to his jaw line. It cut directly through his eye; the lashes were gummed shut, and Lithuania couldn't tell if the wound had actually been deep enough to rob the other of sight. Trembling fingers hovered just over it as Prussia's working eye flickered to his face, gauging his reaction.

"That bad, is it?" His voice was barely audible, but for the first time in a while he spoke without pausing in pain. "West… wouldn't tell me."

"It's –" Toris debated whether or not the other would want the truth. "It isn't pretty, I'll give you that." His smile was fragile. "But you'll certainly look dashing with that scar. The ladies will like it, I'm sure."

Prussia's expression hardened and the eye moved away. "As if that matters." Toris realized that he had said something wrong – the ex-nation was infamous for his refusal to grow close to anyone, after all.

"I'm going – to go get some water for this," he said haltingly. "I don't want to rub alcohol right into it. I'll see if I can get the lashes apart." He rose from his seat, hurrying out of the room before Prussia could get any words out.

When he was gone, Gilbert's straight-backed posture slumped. The white-haired man's shoulders started to shake with repressed shudders, and his hands clenched and unclenched on the sheets.

"Damn it…" he hissed through teeth gritted so hard that his jaw ached. "Damn it, damn it, damn it." One of his hands came up to cradle the side of his head that didn't sport an injury, and the Prussian man – the last Prussian man – struggled to fight back the tears. He hadn't cried when they had lost the war. He hadn't cried when the Allies had stripped him of his country, his people, and his purpose. Even when they had told him he was going to live with Russia, his eyes had remained dry. But after seeing Lithuania's expression – that look of pity in those brown eyes, though the man himself had been unaware that he had been showing it – had twisted something deep inside the ex-nation; a fear that he hadn't felt in a long time.

"I don't want this," he whispered, lips dry and cracked. "I… never wanted… any of this. It wasn't…. supposed to happen this way!" On the last words, his hands moved of their own accord, picking up one of the unused vodka bottles and hurling it at the wall. The glass shattered, an explosion of clear liquid bursting out, soaking the wall, the carpet. It didn't help at all.

"G – Gilbert?" Lithuania was standing in the doorway, a bowl of warm water in his hands, staring with wide eyes at the damp spot on the wall that was only a few feet from his head. "Are – you alright?"

"What the fuck do you think?" Gilbert's voice was dark, but he didn't raise his head, letting his ragged bangs shadow his eyes.

"Ah – sorry. Standard question." Toris returned to his seat, placing the bowl on the table beside the bed. He was silent for a few seconds, seemingly debating saying something. "Gilbert – if you want to avoid Ivan… I suggest against smashing his things. A quieter rebellion is wiser in this house –"

"Like the one… you're offering?" His tone was poisonous. Prussia had gone from firmly neutral to bitter in the five minutes he had been let alone to think. It didn't help that was he sure Toris had seen his meltdown. "Curling up… and letting him walk… on you?"

"We get back at him in smaller ways, Gilbert. If you're only going to get hurt –"

"That isn't good enough," Gilbert hissed, turning suddenly, eye filled with a sudden spurt of enraged fire. "If you get hurt, that means you're being effective. I can take… pain. I like pain; it means that… I'm getting somewhere."

Toris let out a sigh, dipping a clean cloth in the water. He put his free hand on Gilbert's head so that the other could not turn away – his grip was surprisingly strong. "You do not know Ivan the way we do," the Baltic nation said calmly, apparently nonplussed by the insults he was receiving. "You know him in battle, where he does have a sense of honor. In this house, where he does not have the other nations looking over his shoulder, where the other nations do not have the jurisdiction or right to interfere, he's different." Lithuania dabbed the cloth lightly around the injured eye. "He would not hesitate to cripple you. Frankly, you are not important. You are simply a spoil of war. You have nothing that is worth having, except the prestige of having broken the once mighty Prussian Empire." He drizzled a bit of water into the corner of Gilbert's eye, ignoring his flinch of surprise.

"I won't let –"

"That's the strange thing about Ivan," Toris continued, talking right over whatever the other was trying to say. "He doesn't care. He doesn't expect you to let him break you. He expects you to fight, so that he can hurt you and claim that you were being rebellious. He wants you to fight back tooth and nail, because that means he can do the same – only he will come up with far worse than what you can. Believe me." There was a firm conviction on his tone; a conviction that could only come from experience. "Any torture that you have undergone will be nothing to what Ivan will come up with. He knows how to get into your head. Exactly which buttons to push. And he won't just push them; he'll smash them until you hardly know who you are anymore."

There was silence for a long while, save for the dripping as Lithuania wrung out the cloth periodically. The water in the bowl had gradually turned from clear to an unpleasant pink. Prussia was stewing – wanting to lash out at the other for so sharply cutting down his protests, but unable to find the strength necessary to do so. A kitten could probably beat him in his current condition. If only Gilbird had been around, he could have sicked the little animal on the other. But he hadn't seen the yellow chick since he had left it behind when he had gone off to fight.

"… do you think there's something after?" Prussia's tone was more subdued – less of that fanatical refusal to give in evident in it.

Toris paused in tipping a small amount of vodka onto the last clean cloth. "After? You mean like a heaven?"

Gilbert rolled his eyes. "Not necessarily… a heaven. I mean… anything. Something more than… oblivion."

Lithuania himself hadn't ever believed in such a thing – for what purpose would there be an afterlife for nations? They weren't alive in the true sense of the word; they weren't even really people, despite their resemblance to humans. No, the Baltic nation imagined that when countries disappeared, that was what they did. They ceased existing. They almost never came back – Poland being one of the exceptions – and he supposed the nation was simply reborn if that was the case.

He was about to say so to Gilbert, when he caught the look in the other's eye. It was evident that the ex-nation thought he was hiding it – but with all of the strain his body was going through right now, it would have been a miracle if he had been capable of hiding his emotions successfully. And despite their past, despite the fact that Gilbert's attitude grated on his nerves, and that he didn't particularly like the brash German man, Toris couldn't bring himself to share his personal view on the matter.

"I'm sure there's something," he said quietly, aware that the silence had grown almost uncomfortable. "I mean… if Rome can come back to watch over Northern Italy… there must be somewhere that he can come back from, right?"

"He had his scars," Gilbert muttered absently. His open eye was bright again; sweat beading on his brow despite the room-temperature conditions. The fever was back, and he was losing his grip on reality again. "West said… he had his scars… when he saw him…"

Lithuania hadn't been aware that the ancient nation had paid Ludwig a visit – but then again, considering his closeness to Feliciano, it wasn't all that surprising.

"I don't… want to be… blind."

The words escaped him, sounding like a dying thing. Toris stared at him in surprise – such an admission was not something the Prussia he knew would have said. But then again, this entire situation was not something the Prussia of the past would have ever allowed himself to be trapped in.

"Gilbert…" he said softly, placing the forgotten-about rag on his lap. "Gilbert, you won't be blind." He felt an irrational urge to comfort the other – perhaps it was the strangeness of the entire evening catching up to him at last. "You can still see, can't you? You'll be fine."

"Don't… feed me that bullshit." Prussia tilted his head so that he could fix Toris with a pointed, one-eyed glare. "It… won't open. I felt… that blade… I know what near misses… feel like. This wasn't one."

Lithuania sighed, and picked up the cloth again. There was no point trying to hammer positive thoughts into Gilbert's head – he was far too stubborn and thick for brute force to be of any success. Perhaps, with time, his eye might – the nation shoved that thought away. Looking at the mess the wound had already become; well, if the initial injury hadn't destroyed the sight on that side of Prussia's face, the infection that had set in surely would have.

"He's… not going to win," Prussia mumbled, staring at a point somewhere beyond Toris's shoulder, no longer seeing him. "I… won't let him win. I'm going back. This… separation… won't last."

"Prussia –"

"Shut up… Lithuania. I'm going… back. I'll be… strong. I… won't let him keep me… here. I won't… lose myself… like you have."

His words were getting fainter and fainter, but Toris didn't want to hear them anymore. A coil of anger burned in his stomach at the accusation. Logically, the other wasn't in his right mind – but, well, he wouldn't be saying these things if somewhere in his mind, he hadn't already thought of them. Gilbert knew nothing of what living under Ivan was like – the constant terror, balancing on the knife blade that was the Russian's unpredictable moods and whims. He let the cloth fall from numb fingers; removed the bowl of water from his lap and stood. Gilbert's red eye remained fixed where it was, not noticing his presence at all.

"You'll see," the other nation whispered poisonously as he made to leave. While normally mild mannered, Lithuania had a nasty streak to him as well, fostered over the years in Russia's 'care'. His brown eyes lingered over the figure in the bed, the figure he had spent the better part of two hours fixing up. The uncovered wound on his face stood out starkly, but Toris didn't want to finish the task – Prussia had drawn a clear, uncross-able line with his words, fever twisted as they had been.

"You'll soon see the way of things."

(1)"German meat."

A/N: So, in an attempt to make this fiction at least somewhat accurate to history (psh, as if) I've gone back and made some minor edits. Here's an overview, if you don't want to go back and look.

- Cheesy song lyrics at the beginnings of chapters
- A few minor text changes (and by minor, I mean maybe a few sentences at best.)

Please note: The Wall has not been built yet. It wasn't for fourteen years into the separation, actually. Right now there's still a barrier, but you can still see to the other side.

And don't mind Lithuania. He's just stressed out right now. :3

If you've read, I'd appreciate a review!

- Pheleon.