Failure

(Cross-Posting from FanFiction.Net)

A lot of people had little habits when they were feeling stressed out. Things that made them feel a little calmer, or more in control. His big brother Lovino was a drinker, stopping by the bar until he felt calmer. (It didn't often work though. Lovino would come home angrier than ever..) He knew that his good friend Ludwig secretly liked to bake when he was stressed, but he wasn't allowed to tell anyone~ Kiku would clean when he felt too stressed, or would lie down with a cold compress for his migraines. He knew big brother Francis would smoke, or go out late at night to meet pretty women. And Arthur would drink until he was sick. Feliks would online shop till he had nothing left. Alfred was a stress eater, and Matthew was a stress baker, just like Ludwig!

But Feliciano? He was a stress cleaner too, like Kiku. But the difference between the two of them, was that Feli wasn't all too good at it...

Feliciano stood before the sink, letting his bucket fill up with water. He knew it would be much easier to use the mop to clean up the floors. But, it was a lot cleaner when he could use a little elbow grease. That's what Kiku taught him anyways. It was a little funny. He was always making and inventing things to make life more convenient and easy. But he took cleaning so seriously.

As he watched the bucket fill, he let his mind wander. Today had been...eventful. Which wasn't always a bad thing. But...

Ludwig had scolded him today for the state of his reports, demanding to know if it had been thrown together at the last minute. And, well, some of it was, Feliciano had to admit. He had fallen asleep in the middle of it last night... And then later on, Lovino scolded him as well. Felicino had promised to wake his brother up for work that morning so he wouldn't be late. And, well, Feli had just...forgotten. He had been a little too preoccupied this morning to really think about waking his brother.

Little and big mistakes seemed to happen all day. He couldn't count how many times he had said he was sorry.

He was used to making mistakes. He wasn't very smart. He wasn't fast or strong or clever. He was a scaredy cat too.. Most of the time, he didn't have good ideas. He was clingy. Incompetent. All of those things. Mistakes were normal, so people didn't often depend on him. And all he could do was say he was sorry, with that bashful, embarrassed smile on his face. The smile that plenty wanted to smack right off of his face. The smile that made others think he didn't care, or didn't mean it when he said sorry.

But that had never been true from the beginning.

Feliciano snapped out of his little daze when he realized the water bucket was starting to overflow. He quickly turned off the sink and pulled the bucket out. He added a bit of dish soap and mixed it together, before grabbing his scrub brush, and kneeling down on his tile floor. Feliciano dunked the brush into the water, and got to work, scrubbing away. As he did, he sighed softly through his nose. He made mistakes, even when he wasn't being watched, didn't he?

He crawled around the floor for a bit, scrubbing away. He could feel a soft sense of satisfaction as he saw the dust and the tiny stains wash away thanks to him. After a moment, his knees started to hurt from kneeling on the floor for so long. His hands were hurting a bit too, and the work made him sweat. But, he kept at it. The sense of pride was a bit too strong. There wasn't much he could say he was good at, but this was something he knew he could do~

Ah, what was this? Feliciano crawled a bit closer to a strange stain on the tile under his dining room table. Red? When he touched it, he could feel it was a bit sticky. What could that be? Oh, maybe it was the candy from yesterday.. When he was working, he had been sucking on a piece of red hard candy. One that he hadn't finished by the time he had fallen asleep. There hadn't been much left of it, so he had assumed he had swallowed it in his sleep, and didn't think about it again. But now he could see it had fallen out of his mouth when he had fallen asleep, and melted on the floor. How annoying...

With a sigh, Feliciano began to scrub at the sticky stain. But unlike everything else, it didn't come up quite so easily. He began to scrub a bit harder, but that bright, red stain among the white tile was so obvious, mocking him. He couldn't get it, no matter what he did. He frowned, and began to scrub a bit harder. But when he lifted the scrub brush, the stain remained.

He felt a surge of panic rising in his throat when he saw it hadn't budged, and went back to scrubbing. Oh why wasn't it coming out? He began to scrub a bit harder, and a bit faster, but nothing was working!

"Come on..." he whispered softly as he scrubbed and scrubbed. He could do this, he had to do this! He had to do something right today! Anything! Tiny tears appeared in his eyes as he washed and scrubbed away. But nothing was coming up. Why wasn't it working?!

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment in an attempt to calm down, not wanting to cry. He didn't want to cry. He couldn't cry over something that was his fault. He needed to clean it up! He needed to clean it all up, or else he would get into trouble!

He blindly reached out for his water bucket to dip the brush into. But, unable to see with his eyes closed like this, he bumped it with the brush, and knocked it over. Feliciano gasped as it tipped over and spilled all over his tile.. "No, no!" he cried as he grabbed the bucket. He flipped it back onto its bottom, but the damage was already done... He watched as the soapy water spread all over his floor, getting onto everything. And yet, the stain remained. Now he had two messes to clean up...

He could barely see past the tears that were welling up in his eyes. But, he turned back to the red stain and went back to scrubbing. Scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. His fingernails became soft from all of the water, and from the intensity of the scrubbing, he could feel them start to rise from his nailbed. He squeezed his eyes shut as he scrubbed, sobbing all the while. The red stain began to mix in with the blood from his fingers, and his tears dripped down onto his hands.

His shoulders trembled, and a ringing began to hum away in his ears, melting down into a panic attack. He could hear someone shouting at him from over his shoulders. Mr. Austria. Scolding him, telling him he couldn't do anything right. Try harder, clean harder, he had to hurry up! But, he couldn't do it...

Feliciano dropped the brush, letting out a sound like a wounded animal as he lowered his head into his soapy hands.

Could he do nothing right...?