Well. Today is October 1st. (2nd, for the Europeans who read this-I'm late on posting!) Now, one year ago today, I posted "Interference", officially beginning the "Soviet Insanity" series.

I did not realize this until around ten this morning, so I typed this up quickly to commemorate the day. I don't think this is very good, but, eh. Something needed to be done.

Also, while we're on the subject of fics, "Written in Blood" will not be updating this Saturday. I want this chapter to be good, and I'm going to be too busy to make it good within the next couple days. Therefore, expect the finale on October 10th.

That being said, thank you all for your support throughout this year-it's been rough, but it's also been wonderful. I don't know where I would be without you guys, but it wouldn't be a good place. I've learned a lot about myself through writing "Soviet Insanity", and I would never have continued as long as I have without your support. So thank you. I love you all, and I hope you enjoy this little fic.

~Shadows in the Light of Day

Lithuania cut his wrists bloody every day when winter came. Winter reminded him of that house, of those walls, of the room where Russia had imprisoned and tormented him.

He remembered that snow had fallen, fresh and white and beautiful, on the day that he walked to his own destruction. Had he stayed there in the snow, with his brothers and with Ukraine and Natalya, things might have been much different.

He might not have been so totally destroyed.

He might not have hated the winter. But he remembered snow winds howling outside the window as Russia tortured him, remembered his own panicked shrieks mingling with the wind. He remembered that no one had heard him scream.

They had not come to save him until it was too late, until he was already insane, ready to go to his death rather than suffer another day. He did go to his death, threw himself onto the knife meant for his torturer, a blade held by the girl he loved, and he somehow lost Belarus through that action.

He carved a deeper slice into his already brutalized arm, stared at his shaking fingers and remembered when those fingers had been severed, and then, when the fingers of his other hand had held a gun to his head as he made his first attempt at suicide.

He remembered Russia's cruel, childish, misunderstanding, well-meaning fingers. Russia had thought he was helping.

Russia had killed them all, ruined them all, but it was not his fault. It was Lithuania who was to blame; it always had been. He could have saved Estonia. He did not save Estonia, and Estonia went insane.

He did not save Latvia or Ukraine, and they both lost their innocence and became cowering, wide-eyed things that were somehow saner and more grown up than any of the others, all of whom had lost their minds, while those two, once so innocent, became adults who shouldered the burden that their broken family members could not bear. He had not protected them.

He had not protected Belarus, not that he could have. But perhaps she had wanted to be protected, and that was why she had left him. Because he had not protected her? He did not know. He only knew that he wanted her back.

He sliced deeper. Deeper, deeper, ever deeper, each slice a memory of his agony and of his failure. Estonia, screaming for him to help. Estonia, laughing as he pulled the trigger on Russia. Estonia, falling to the ground as he, Lithuania, drove a knife into his own little brother's heart.

Estonia, insane. If he had stopped it in the beginning, at that one moment when Estonia had to protect Latvia in his absence, none of it would have happened. That long scar that Ukraine tried so hard to hide-it would never have existed! Estonia would not be broken or hurt or frightened, and Latvia would still be the naïve child who wanted to build a snowman on winter days in Russia.

And Belarus… What would Belarus be? She would not love him. She would loathe him either way. But it would be better had she never loved him at all, had she never been his friend. He had thought he could keep her for his own, and so the pain of losing her had been all the more unbearable.

He could have stood her eternal rejection had he known that he had saved the others from their pain. But they were all insane or broken, and so he could not stand it. He could stand no pain, not now, and he knelt on the floor with a knife in his hand, stared at his bloodied arm, and remembered Russia.

Some days he still wanted to go back, back to all the pain, because he believed that if he went back, he could save Russia. Russia still looked so sad and broken, like a child, and Lithuania wanted to help him, to save him.

Russia might be the only person left for him to save. He could not help his brothers, he could not help Belarus, he could not help Ukraine. But maybe if he went back to the mansion, he could help Russia. Maybe there was one last person for him to save.

There might be one more chance for him to redeem himself, and yet, he did not want to go back. He would give anything to not have to go back, to keep from having to look upon that cold mansion again. He did not want to enter into that place, did not want to belong to Russia again. And yet he knew that if he could not save someone, then his existence was in vain. If he could save none of them… He was merely a failure.

The wind howled outside, and Lithuania sobbed, digging the knife deeper into his arm.

"I f-failed… I don't want to go back," he whispered. "We can never go back… Why can't we? Or, at least, why can't I? If not back in time, then back to the mansion. Back to Russia. I could help him. He needed me; he still does. I saw it in his eyes. He needs me… I have to… Go back…"

The knife clattered to the floor, and Lithuania looked down, shocked to see a blood pooling on the floor in front of him.

He never let himself bleed this much.

"A-a…"

He did not know who he was calling for, but it was Latvia who answered. Lithuania did not know how the boy had gotten into his house, but there he came, Estonia behind him, small feet pattering down the hallway.

He knew it was Latvia because of how quick and light the steps were. He knew Estonia was with Latvia because he could also hear heavier, slow, reluctant footsteps, and he knew them to be Estonia's. He knew how to recognize the footsteps of all the former Soviets, had learned long ago a way to tell whether it was Russia or Latvia or anyone in between coming down the hallway to his room. He had learned to anticipate cruel beatings and comforting embraces, deep despair and momentary comfort.

He tried to call out, tried to tell Latvia not to come in, but the little boy came anyways, violet eyes widening with concern and pity as he took in the scene.

"Oh, Toris…" Latvia's voice sounded so soft and childish, and so understanding. The understanding, the pity in Latvia's voice, only served as a further reminder of how deeply Lithuania had failed.

"Why do you do this?" Estonia murmured, kneeling behind Latvia, who was crouching in the pool of blood, seemingly oblivious to the sticky liquid, despite the fears that had once paralyzed him.

"Eddy, Toris, ssh," Latvia said, his soft voice commanding attention despite its trembling quality. "Ssh. No talking right now, okay? Toris, don't cry. It's okay."

Lithuania collapsed into his tiny brother's arms, exhausted and weakened by blood loss, sobbing incoherently. He tried to apologize, and he supposed that Latvia understood what he was trying to say, because the tiny boy's eyes widened, then filled with sorrowful tears.

"Toris, you didn't fail, and it's not your fault, okay?"

Latvia turned to Estonia, saw the older boy kneeling behind him, tears filling the soft blue eyes that Estonia hid so well behind his thick glasses.

"Eddy, Toris needs bandages," he said. "Please get some, okay? I'll stay with him."

The first tear slid down Estonia's cheek.

"Eddy, you're being useful if you get bandages," Latvia said, using a sharper voice this time. "You are not being useful sitting here in this bloodstained room. Go get bandages and then come and sit in the bloody room, okay?

Estonia nodded, then stood up, paying no heed to the blood staining his pants.

"I'll be back," he murmured. "Don't let Toris die."

As if Latvia could let Lithuania die. He had already seen both his brothers die far too many times; he must never let it happen again. Never again. This was why he had sent Estonia away. He did not want to see the blond boy become angry with Lithuania. Nothing they could say or do would convince Lithuania that he had not failed, that he had instead played a most crucial role in getting all of them away from Russia in the end. Nothing they could say would erase Lithuania's pain, and Estonia's anger could only increase Lithuania's belief that he had failed. Latvia remembered when Estonia was still a gentle, if abrupt boy, nervous and smart and so wonderful…

Estonia was a dark and tainted kind of wonderful, now. They were all a twisted wonderful, now, but Latvia remembered when they had all been an angelic wonderful, and so how much more must Lithuania, who saw the good even in the most tainted souls, remember how Estonia had been before?

They could not fix Lithuania, could not erase the dark, twisted quality of their existences, but Latvia would try nonetheless. He could at least attempt to make Lithuania see sense, although he knew it would do no good. Anything to keep his older brother awake until Estonia came back. Anything but allowing Lithuania to die again.

He had seen them both die so many times, while he had died only a handful of times. Several times at Russia's hands. Once at Estonia's. He tried not to blame either of them, and he could never blame Estonia. Russia was harder. He had not seen Russia destroyed in front of him.

Perhaps that was the reason why Lithuania hurt himself. Because he had seen both Russia and Estonia destroyed, and had not been able to save either of them. It was certain that Lithuania blamed all of the others' pain on himself. And Lithuania was not to blame, no matter what he thought, and Latvia had to make him see…

"Toris."

Lithuania would not look up at him, merely sobbed harder, hands tangled in his long hair. Lithuania's hands and hair were bloodstained like his arms. Everything about Lithuania was blood-red, and Latvia remembered when 'Lithuania' meant green and gold sunshine. 'Lithuania' now meant blood-red pain.

"I'm sorry, Raivis."

Lithuania's voice was soft and agonized and broken, and Latvia reached out a slim, scarred hand and brushed Lithuania's hair away from his face, looking into the dulled, agonized green eyes of the older brother who had broken trying to save him, and finding no sunlight there.

"I have to make the sunlight come back."

"Toris, please listen… It's not your fault that any of what happened, happened. It's not Eddy's fault or mine or Mr. Russia's, and it's really definitely not yours. So stop apologizing to me, please. You didn't ruin my innocence-you couldn't have. You're too good and kind and sweet to do that, and if my innocence got erased it's not your fault. It can never be your fault, because you tried the hardest of all to save everyone else. You know that. So how can you possibly blame yourself? Don't blame yourself, Toris! I hate it when you do this, when you hurt yourself, and I feel like it's because of me."

"No, Raivis, no…" Lithuania's breathing was getting heavier, pained and ragged, and Latvia realized that his brother was dying. He looked down at Lithuania's wrists, and saw, amidst the blood and gore from those horrible cuts, a single word.

'Failure'. Written once on each arm, blood-red against a background of puckered white, pink, and purple scars.

"Toris. No. I told you, it's not true. You are not a failure. You're my big brother and you're wonderful and you saved my life and… Toris, don't! Don't hurt yourself anymore! It makes me so sad and I know I can't fix you but it was never your fault and please don't hurt yourself anymore!"

"R… Rai…" Lithuania's entire body was trembling, and Latvia knew that his older brother was near unconsciousness. And there was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do, to heal Toris, not in mind or in body. The Lithuanian boy's mind was irreversibly scarred, and Lithuania himself made certain that his physical scars grew ever deeper, ever paler and more pronounced. There were so many scars, and although Latvia knew that the word Lithuania had engraved on his arm would fade into the background of tangled scars, he still hated it, hated the knowledge that Lithuania believed himself to be the cause of all the others' pain, when Lithuania was the embodiment of sunlight and safety and bravery.

"Hush, Toris," he murmured, reaching forward, moving Lithuania so that the larger boy's head was resting on his shoulder. "Hush. I know it hurts, I know you don't believe you're a good person, but you are. I love you, big brother. I always will. Please try to believe that, okay? Please?"

Lithuania said nothing, and Latvia held onto his older brother until Lithuania's weak sobs subsided. It never occurred to him to call for Estonia. Once Lithuania was this weak, there was nothing any of them could do for him. They could resurrect him, but that would take time.

And he did not want to see Estonia cry, as the blond Baltic surely would when he learned that they had failed to save Lithuania yet again.

Estonia rummaged through the cupboards in Lithuania's bathroom, searching for bandages. It was quite possible that Lithuania did not own any bandages, but he sometimes wore them on his wrists for world conferences, and, therefore, Estonia found it likely that Lithuania had some bandages stashed away somewhere.

He finally located the bandages when he noticed the sheer amount of blood on the knob of one of the bottom drawers. Everything in Lithuania's house seemed to have drops of blood on it, but this drawer was practically crimson with the stuff.

As Estonia stood up, he found himself staring at his own reflection in the mirror. He did not like what he saw. What had once been an introverted but confident teenage boy now looked like an exhausted ghost, with dark circles under its eyes. The eyes themselves unnerved Estonia, and he wondered if everyone could see the madness that he now saw, staring at his own reflection.

His expression was sad, tense, even agonized, and he wondered if such as broken boy was capable of smiling.

"When…was the last time that I smiled?" he murmured. He tried, then, to muster a smile, but found that he could not. He saw the corners of his mouth twitch, but he could not smile. Instead, tears rolled down his cheeks, and what should have been a laugh became a twisted, hysterical sob.

"I…have to…smile…" he whispered, leaning on the edge of the sink and staring at his sobbing reflection in the mirror. "I… T-Toris can't… So I have to…"

He sank to his knees, pale hands grasping the edge of the sink, and sobbed. He could not smile, could not laugh, could only cry. The only time he ever smiled was when he was in the grip of insanity, and a smile of insanity was not a smile of joy, but of pain and sorrow and a desire for revenge, all wrapped into one expression, one look.

He had never seen his own smile when he was insane, but he had seen Russia's, and he knew what insanity looked like. And still he had allowed himself to slip into it without questioning his own actions, his own madness.

"It's not Toris' fault," he whispered, staring at the blood-flecked cabinets and floor, a testimony to just how far his older brother had fallen. "It's not. He couldn't have saved me that day. He wasn't even awake. I-it's my fault. If I had been stronger… Stood up to Russia, gotten them all out… Instead of trying to kill them all… It would have been okay. Toris would be okay, we'd all be okay… I… I want to be myself again!"

He climbed to his feet, and the eyes that stared back at him from out of the mirror were not his own, but the broken, dead, soulless eyes of a terrible monster, tormented and caged inside a frail yet indestructible human form.

"I don't want to be this," he whispered. "I don't want any of us to be like this. W-when did it all start…? How long ago? It feels like forever, eternity. How long?"

"I never intended to interfere… But it wasn't as if I had much of a choice."