Countryhumans Oneshots

A Reckoning With Oneself

TW for Internalized Transphobia and Homophobia and actual transphobia and homophobia. Religious-based homophobia and transphobia, and calling queerness a sin. Religious Trauma and also two people getting misgendered.

It started with Hawaiʻi.

Ireland didn't know the context, but he saw the clip. It was passed around, news station to news station, until the country became convinced that most of the world had seen it.

Hawaiʻi admitted to the world that she was a queer, that she had had sex with women. Ireland thought back to when he visited her for Kalaupapa's funeral when she had that girl staying with her and wondered if that was the person who tempted Hawaiʻi into sin.

Ireland was horrified and scared.

It wasn't the first time a countryhuman had pulled a stunt like this. In the early 1970s, Australia went on live TV and told the world that she was a man, not a woman. Ireland had tried to talk to her then, to get her to see reason, to explain to her that the surgery she had received would ultimately hurt her.

New South Wales prevented him from talking to Australia. The state insisted that Australia was a man and blocked any country from talking to her and making her see reason.

He insisted he was protecting his daughter. Ireland had begged to see her, but he refused. Not even when Britain demanded to talk to Australia did he back down.

It was impressive for a former colony that had spent most of his life in fear of Britain to stand up to him in that way.

Eventually, an uneasy status quo fell across the UN meeting room. Refer to Australia as a man to her face and in public to prevent international incidents, but you were free to call her by her proper gender when alone.

New South Wales and Australia's other states still prevented anyone from talking to her in private unless they genuinely supported the delusion, the sin.

Ireland didn't know if anyone was actually allowed to talk to her alone anymore.

So Ireland had already been dealing with a lot when he heard about Hawaiʻi.

It broke his heart. To hear that the girl he thought of as almost a daughter was living in sin...it hurt.

He ignored the part of him that said that this line of thinking is what turned America, Britain, and England into what they are now. That was their greed and need for control. It didn't have as much to do with religion as they claimed it did.

Ireland had made his way to America's house in the weird in-between only countries could go, where they were more spirit than man, a place that Britain often commented was their version of Olympus.

He told America he had seen the news about Hawaiʻi and wanted to talk to her. The colony-turned-empire only raised an eyebrow and asked why.

Ireland thought it was a stupid question. America should know why; he's probably had the same conversation with Hawaiʻi already. Ireland would never support what America did to her, but he would be blind to say America didn't care about her.

Ireland explained what he wanted to do: ask Hawaiʻi what and beg her to turn away from her sins. The humans and some of the other countries could sin all they wanted to, but not her, not Australia, not the people who became his family after he lost his.

Ireland couldn't bear being parted from them in the afterlife.

"Get out, Ireland." America had said, his tone even and cold. It was the first time Ireland had heard America willingly drop the familial title. It was shocking. Massachusetts looked at him like he was...like someone like Britain. The way Massachusetts looked so disgusted and angry. The way Massachusetts told him Hawaiʻi wasn't the only US state who was a queer, that South Carolina had become convinced he was a woman.