Fallen Bridges {Hetalia fanfic}

One ~ Castles in the Sky

The cold moonlight cast its long fingers across the floor, as Li-Xaoi sat with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He is settled in a window seat, a book resting on his knees; but his blank gaze merely skims across the words. His mind is elsewhere, preoccupied with the nerves that are knawing away the inside of his stomach. It had been almost fourteen months since he had woken up in hospital, with no idea who he was; tomorrow he was returning to school. For just under 11 of those months, Li had been in and out of hospital, re-learning how to walk, overcoming aphasia and patiently re-gaining his abilities to read and write.

(well not exactly patiently...)

There had been times when both he and whichever family member was with him had been in tears- sometimes happiness, more often frustration and occasionally anger. Seven of those months, he had been constricted to the hospital: living in the grey building, staring at a grey ceiling, short walks in the gardens beneath a grey English sky, subjected to living off the even greyer food. Four months ago, he had been officially discharged; there was nothing more that the doctors could do for him. Li was walking, breathing, reading, writing, talking-

(Poor Yao couldn't get rid of my old 'like' tic though)

-just like before the Event.

The Event.

It was the nicest way he could explain it to himself. It was still bothering Li what had happened, or to be exact, why nobody would just sit down and explain. His memory wasn't as good as before, and he had to keep a notebook with him at all times so that he could keep his messy thoughts in order, and the events that led to him being in hospital were still fragmented. He could explain it to himself a little: a lorry had hit him at an angle, unable to handle the little twisting villiage roads with such a full load; the tarmac was soft and sticky in the high temperatures. Li knew that he had been vaguely heading home, but he also knew that he hadn't been in the right place. When Yao asked him to explain, Li had found it too hard. Beyond that vague idea of going home, and the moment when everything just exploded into red, the entire evening and the weeks- months- leading up to it were fuzzy in his mind. There was a mental block there, and he just wanted it gone.

Li shut his eyes, blanking out everything and starting to work his way back down the long months. If he tried, if he really concentrated...

His eyebrows twitched, and the hand that loosley held his book whitened at the knuckles; as the broken film of his memory was set alight. The stench of heated gasoline and burnt tarmac assaulted his nostrils, the coppery tang of blood and raw fear exploding in the back of his throat like bile

(Keep going, you know these smells now... keep going)

His steady breathing hitched in his throat, as he heard a fading echo of screaming brakes surface from the obscure memories. Within his chest his heart was pounding out a desperate taboo, and then there was only red. Red for fear, blood, confusion...

"Couldn't you sleep?" Mei's voice pulled Li back from the dangerous edge of his thoughts, and he turned to look at his sister. She was wearing a long pink dressing gown, Chinese silk slippers on her feet and her long brown hair messy. In each hand she held a steaming cup of warm spiced milk. "I guessed you were dreaming again, so I made something to relax you~"

"Thank you," Li took the warm milk gratefully, his tongue registering honey and lavender as he sipped it. No matter how annoying his family became, there were always moments like this when it wasn't so bad being 'the baby' out of his siblings. His tingling nerves slowly settled, as peace fell over Li's mind.

"Was it the same one?" Mei questioned him softly, reclining in Yao's worn red armchair.

"The same," Li clarified, his face hidden by the rim of his mug. He didn't want Mei to see the deep sadness that brimmed in his eyes, brought by the memory his his odd recurring dream.