Those Nights (Pain of a Nation)

by Xenat25

This is just a short one-shot I wrote when thinking about what effect immortality must have on the Nations' psyches... And how the only people they can find sympathy and comfort with are each other. The characters are the Allies and the Axis, rated T for mature themes.

Disclaimer: I do not own Axis Powers Hetalia, or any affiliates thereof…

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Those Nights -(The Pain of a Nation)

We live and die for those nights.

When we are not Russia and England and America and Germany and Italy and China and France and Japan… No. Those nights we are mortal. Almost human…

Oh, how wonderful to be Ivan and Arthur and Alfred and Ludwig and Feliciano and Yao and Francis and Kiku, if only for this short time. Drowning in our sorrows, wallowing in our regrets; alone, even as we are together. War and invasion and rise and fall and empire and colony and glorious, bloodstained victory and terrible, wounded defeat… All are lost in the fog of our impaired minds.

For we are immortal beings; but we still bear that curse which afflicts all who must live in this beautiful terrible world. We must think and feel and love and hate… All of these feelings and regrets, we are drowning.

As the night wears on we forget more and more, but remember other things… Beautiful tragedies and terrible victories, violence that we have tried so hard to forget. Screaming at the sky in remembered despair, reliving ancient anguish. It never ends, we cannot force it to end, but we face and hide our past, together.

And when we have drowned for so long that we forget everything, when even walking is impossible, then we support each other. Staggering home to collapse together and share the warmth of companionship with other who understand this pain, just for tonight.

Because when morning comes, we must again become that which we cannot help but love and hate.

Return to being Russia and England and America and Germany and Italy and China and France and Japan, with all the tensions and history that those names encompass…

But for tonight, we can feel mortal. Our minds are clouded, hazy. Screaming at the sky and seeking comfort in the touch of another… One who has also felt the pain of a Nation.